번역 상황 통계

상태 막대의 색상

Depending on their status translation statistics can show different colors to indicate each particular status of the strings. Here is what the colours in the Launchpad Translation statistics mean:

Translated strings:

Green: the translation imported from the upstream project and the one in Launchpad are identical.

Blue: changed in Launchpad. The translation was imported from an upstream project, but translator chose to change it in Launchpad. The changed string will override the upstream one and be used in the distributed translations. Translators should keep these modifications to a minimum, and manually send them back to upstream if necessary.

Purple: newly translated in Launchpad. The string is only translated in Launchpad. Translations imported from upstream did not have a translation for the string.

Untranslated strings:

Red: untranslated. These strings have neither been translated in the upstream project nor in Launchpad

Lifecycle

During the lifecycle of translations, and while translators do their work, there are some different paths in which the colours can change. Here is a description of the most common scenarios:

Red > Purple > Green. In this scenario, the string was untranslated (Red), the translator translated it in Launchpad and there was no translation upstream (Purple). In the next translation import, the upstream translation has been done and coincides with the Launchpad one. This was because either an upstream translator made exactly the same translation or because the translator sent the translations back to upstream.

Red > Purple > Blue > Green. The string was untranslated (Red), the translator translated it in Launchpad and there was no translation upstream (Purple). In the next translation import, the upstream translation has been done and is different to the Launchpad one. This was probably because there was no communication between the upstream translator and the downstream one: the latter did not send his/her changes back to upstream, so upstream didn't know someone had already translated this somewhere else and translated it again, but differently. The way to get this translation to green is for the two translators to agree in a common translation, and either change it in Launchpad or upstream, depending on which one they might want to adopt.

Red > Green. The translation has been done upstream and it has been imported into Launchpad.

Green > Blue. A translator deliberately overrode an upstream translation. Upstream and Launchpad translations differ. These should be kept to a minimum, if necessary at all.

Running a localization team

Suggestions for sections included in your guidelines

Below are some ideas, hints, for some information that could be included into the guildelines for your language:

A section describing the current focus for translations. What packages should be translated, their priority, due date... etc

Create or provide a communication channel for all translators. It can be a forum, mailing list, IRC channel. The main usage of this channel is to support team work, ask for help or suggestions.

Provide information about other team working on translations, links to other upstream projects. Try to keep in touch/sync with their work.

Decide what grammatical mode or tense is used when translating into your language.

Decide grammatical person and if you are going to use a formal or informal approach when translating software. T-V distinction.

Decide a common set of terminology or dictionary to be used by all translators. This will help creating uniform translations.

A section, or a dedicated page, containing examples of common errors, together with an explanation of the error and the suggested solution

A section, or a dedicated page, containing examples of strings that should not be translated.

Common/Best practice

Below you will find a set of common practices for running a team

Don't forget about other translators or translations groups. In many cases you or your are not the only one doing translation in the free software ecosystem. Always keep in touch with that other teams are doing and make sure the translation teams for your language are translating free software using the same "language". Try to create or join a communication channel channel common to all translation teams for your language and use it for talking about important aspect that affect all translations.

Define a procedure for accepting new team members.

The acceptance level may vary according to the percentage of already finished translations. For languages with few translators and translations already done team acceptance could be lower than in the case of a language with many translators, translations made and the presence of GTP, OpenOffice , etc upstream translation projects.

Before accepting a member you may ask him/her to provide some translation. If the translations are great you may accept the new member. Otherwise giving feedback about why the translation are not good is a great help. Try to use a forum, mailinglist or IRC channel for giving feedback to potential new members.

Create a webpage/wikipage for the translations guide. This guide should contain:

First rule: "If a translation does not make sense for you / your grandmother, definitely it is wrong!".

Second rule: "Make your translation useful and adapt to the context. Don't follow always the original text". Like for example "Tile children" may sound funny in many languages so try "Arrange windows as tile". The original text is not always the correct one.